Posted on Fri, Apr. 18, 2008

Running shoes aren't optional

UK'S LOCKE STAYS AT IT WITH FOOTBALL AND TRACK AND FIELD

By Mark Story

HERALD-LEADER SPORTS COLUMNIST

David Stephenson | Staff

Derrick Locke scored a game-winning TD against Vanderbilt. File photo by Charles Bertram | Staff

And you think your job requires multi-tasking.

Derrick Locke has spent his spring going back and forth between football and track and field. The University of Kentucky sophomore has to work in that whole going to class thing, too.

You wonder how the surprise running back standout who has become a record-shattering long-jumper avoids whiplash.

"It's hard," Locke says.

Football: Rich Brooks says the two fastest players he's ever coached, college or pro, are longtime NFL wide receiver Eddie Kennison and a current UK tailback, Locke.

On UK's Pro Day -- when NFL scouts evaluate players -- Locke laid down a blazing 4.21 in the 40-yard dash.

That was only slightly better than the 4.24 turned in by fellow Kentucky running back Alfonso Smith.

Since Locke showed up in Lexington with running shoes in tow, there has been ample speculation over who would win a race: The Oklahoma import or Smith, a former Kentucky high school Class 3A 100-meter champ.

But the Pro Day settles it, right Alfonso?

"The clock time, the dude might have pushed it a little faster on him," Smith said. "If we raced, it would be like a photo finish kind of thing."

Locke, who does not lack for self-confidence, says he'll be glad to run head-to-head if Smith so desires.

"It's not going to matter," Locke said. "I'm going to win."

Track and Field: The running back who was the late-game hero of signature Kentucky football wins over Arkansas and eventual national champion LSU in 2007 was only in Blue and White because of track.

"We found him by accident," says UK track head coach Don Weber.

According to Weber, Kentucky track assistant James Thomas found out about Locke while on the phone with a guidance counselor at Hugo High School in Southern Oklahoma. "We called about somebody else," Weber said.

The Hugo guidance counselor kept raving about a star senior athlete who was an emerging track standout --and an even better football player.

"Coach Thomas and this counselor were talking and Derrick just happened to walk by," Weber says. "They put him on the phone."

Soon, Hugo High was rushing a tape of Locke's football exploits to the UK track office. Before sending it over to Brooks, Weber took a peek.

"I don't know that much about watching for the technical stuff on a football tape," the Wildcats track coach said. "But this was just one guy, the same guy, running all over the place. He was just dominant."

Football: At Hugo High -- a school of some 400 students in a town of some 5,500 located just north of the Texas border -- Derrick Locke spent most of his high school career as a (running) quarterback.

His older brother, Delvonsha, was the school's star running back. But Delvonsha graduated before Derrick's senior year, and "I had the bright idea to move Derrick to running back," says Hugo Coach Tommy Bare.

The result was more than 3,250 yards and exactly 51 touchdowns for Locke in 2006. All of this in spite of the fact the 5-foot-10, 170-pounder did not play in the fourth quarter of seven of Hugo's 13 games because the score was out of hand.

Bare says Locke's dream was to play for the Oklahoma Sooners. "They told him up front that he was too little," Bare says.

Oklahoma State, Kansas, Iowa State and Wyoming offered scholarships. But, because of his size, they wanted Locke either as a defensive back or slot receiver.

Locke was insistent that he could be a running back. He spurned the big-time offers and planned to go to a junior college that had promised him he could carry the ball.

Then UK's Brooks watched that tape and told Locke he would get a chance to run the ball if he came to Lexington.

Track and Field: With very limited training, Locke went out in his senior year of high school and long-jumped 25 feet 43/4 inches.

"It broke a 33-year-old state record," says Hugo High's Bare. "It was the oldest record in Oklahoma."

Football: Sept. 22, 2007, Fayetteville, Ark., fourth quarter of Kentucky's SEC opener against Arkansas: UK's top three tailbacks get hurt. With the Cats trailing 29-21 in the fourth period, Kentucky's primary ballcarrier is suddenly the true freshman track man.

All Locke did was run for 48 yards on nine carries and a touchdown as UK rallied to win. The rest of the season, Kentucky took to using Locke as a late-game, change-of-pace back. There were 64 Locke rushing yards in UK's upset of LSU and 76 against Florida.

Says Brooks: "When defenses would start to get tired legs, we'd spot Derrick, and he would make them pay."

Track and Field: While splitting his concentration between football practice and the long jump this spring, Locke managed to set a UK record with a leap of 25-31/4 in his first outdoor meet as a collegian.

The record is tribute to natural ability because Locke's split commitments mean his jumping technique is a work in progress.

Says Weber: "On the record jump, he landed with his rear leg substantially behind his front leg, and they measure you from the farthest back part of your landing. When he gets his technique down, gets his landings tightened up, he's going to be over 26 feet pretty easily."

Football: This spring, Locke is among a stable of talented tailbacks -- Tony Dixon, Smith and Moncell Allen -- bidding for playing time.

The question about Locke is whether he has the size and durability to be a featured back?

"That's yet to be determined," Brooks says. "Derrick obviously has game-breaking speed, and he runs hard. He's a north-south runner, a guy who is always going downhill. But he hasn't shown yet -- and hasn't had the opportunity to show yet -- whether he can be a guy who can take the ball 20, 25 times a game and not get beaten down."

Talk about his size brings an animated response from the guy who was told he wasn't big enough to be a tailback.

"All I say is 'come watch me play,'" Locke says. "See how I run through the hole. Size is not everything. I run hard. I lower my shoulder. I'm the one who delivers blows. I'll be just fine. I can take any hit."

Football. And track and field: This spring, that's been Derrick Locke's life.

"When I do get a break, I go to sleep," he says.

So, what did your job require today?